12/07/2014

Thoughts On A Sunday

Yet another snowfall blanketed New Hampshire, though not to the extent it had prior to Thanksgiving. We did lose power, but only briefly. This time it wasn't caused by falling tree limbs but by a traffic accident just down the road.

Snowblowing the 3+ inches was problematic seeing as the snow was very wet and heavy, something the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower didn't handle all that well. (We had to replace one shear pin and clean out the clogged discharge chute over a dozen times.)

With the sun out today we got some more melting of the ice/frozen slush left after clearing the driveway.

I'm just hoping this isn't setting the pattern for snowfall for the rest of the winter, something my grandfather always talked about. He was firm believer the first couple of snowfalls indicated the pattern of storms for the rest of the winter. If that is indeed the case then this is going to be a long arduous winter.

This from an administration that touted itself as “one of the most transparent presidencies in history.” The Nixon White House was more transparent than this administration, and that's saying something.

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Landrieu lost her runoff election against GOP challenger Bill Cassidy, losing by almost 12 percentage points, handing the Republicans a solid 54 seat majority in the US Senate.

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I have to agree with many who think the only way to rein in the federal government overreach is for the state legislatures to wrest power away from Washington, exercising their Ninth an d Tenth Amendment rights, and if need be, call for an Article V constitutional convention.

Washington needs to be reminded that it serves us and not the other way around.

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In line with what I wrote above, I think we should consider adding a Sunset Committee to Congress whose sole purpose will be to review all older legislation and programs and decide which of them are no longer germane, duplicative, or are at cross-purposes with other laws. It will then create a list of those laws and programs and generate legislation to “sunset” them, i.e. repeal the no longer needed laws or shutdown the useless or redundant programs. A number of states have them, so why not the federal government? (New Hampshire used to have just such a Sunset Commission, but it did away with itself some time in the late 80's. I think it's time to bring it back.)

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Glenn Reynolds comments upon the fake UVA gang-rape scandal and links to previous posts and comments about how college campuses are now hostile environments for males. Some of his previous posts date back to 2002, so it isn't as if this anti-male hostility on campuses has sprung up just recently.

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There seems to be some truth in this.

“Contemporary liberalism is a scheme for the already affluent and influential ti increase their power.”

Liberal myths propagated to generate outrage and activism, to organize and coordinate and mobilize disparate grievances and conflicting agendas, so often have the same relation to truth, accuracy, and legitimacy as a Bud Light commercial. Marketing is not limited to business. Inside the office buildings of Washington, D.C., are thousands upon thousands of professionals whose livelihoods depend on the fact that there is no better way than a well-run public-relations campaign to get you to do what they want. What recent weeks have done is provide several lessons in the suspect nature of such campaigns.

Then again, most of the American people have known that for a long time.

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The video tape in question shows no punches being thrown by the officer despite claims to the contrary by the girl's mother and the person who recorded the video.

So who are we to believe? Our lying eyes watching the video tape or the two 'witnesses'?

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Regular readers know I have no love for labor unions, particularly in light of my almost 20-year membership in one. It appears I'm not the only one who feels animosity for unions, particularly their own unions. This is particularly true of public-employee unions.

In Wisconsin it has become evident that 15,000 teachers have no love of their union, with 25 more unions decertified by their 'members' votes. When the unions are nothing more than a fund-raising organ of one particular political party (Hint: it isn't the GOP), their reason to exist is gone. They really don't represent the rank-and-file and as such shouldn't expect to retain any loyalty of their members. Once the union members had the power to decide whether or not their union should survive, a lot of them saw decertification as a path to freedom and took it.

If others are given the opportunity I expect to see similar results.

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I've put off my annual flu vaccine, not because I didn't think I needed it but because I just plain keep forgetting to get it. Now it looks like I probably won't bother this year because the vaccine that is available is a poor match of this year's flu virus.

Each year epidemiologists make educated guesses about which flu strains will be making the rounds. For the most part they get it right. Just not this year.

The season has only just begun, but 91 percent of the approximately 1,200 samples tested thus far are of the H3N2 subtype of influenza A, Dr. Frieden said. Almost all the rest were influenza B. There were almost no samples of the H1 subtype, a descendant of the 2009 swine flu strain.

Years in which H3 subtypes are more common than H1 subtypes tend to lead to more hospitalizations and deaths.

Moreover, about half of those H3 subtypes — or about 45 percent of all the samples tested so far — are of a new H3 subtype that this season’s flu vaccine does not protect well against.

The new subtype showed up early this spring and in the US early this fall. That meant there wasn't any time to create an updated vaccine so we're stuck with the one we have.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temperatures are plummeting, more snow is forecast for the middle of the week, and where we're already getting a good case of snow fatigue...and it's not even yet.